Funding road upkeep

The cost is usually so large when it comes to just about any road construction project that it seems like we're talking Monopoly money instead of real dollars.

It's hard not to put one's pinky up to one's lip and lapse into an impersonation of Austin Powers' arch nemesis, Dr. Evil, when you mention the $2.8 million being spent to refurbish three bridges in the Virgin River Gorge.

While most of us will never personally write checks the size of the ones written to pay for things like the $475 million Southern Parkway, it is our tax dollars that ultimately fund those checks. The number of dollars behind such large public road projects are indeed huge, but the work various departments of transportation do and the projects they complete provide our nation with the means to reach destinations throughout the country quickly and safely.

For an example of what happens when dollars aren't invested into road repair, look at the 2007 collapse of the Interstate 35 bridge in the Minneapolis-St. Paul metropolitan area. In that incident, 13 people were killed and hundreds were injured when an eight-lane, steel-truss bridge over the Mississippi River failed during rush hour. The mishap is an example of the true life-and-death impact the quality of workmanship and amount of funding provided for transportation projects can have on a community.

While projects such as bridge repair in the Virgin River Gorge or the update at the Exit 8 interchange of Interstate 15 may inconvenience drivers with a few extra minutes of travel time while the work is ongoing, the inconvenience is a small price to pay to ensure that we can safely travel trough the region. The ramp on the east side of the interchange may be a little rough at Exit 8, but most drivers will readily admit the new configuration provides for a quicker and smoother driving experience navigating through one of the busier intersections in Southern Utah.

Those who construct and maintain the roads in Southern Utah provide an invaluable contribution to our community and we applaud them for their hard work.

While we feel road projects should be provided with every penny they need to be maintained, expanded and improved, the reality is these phenomenally expensive undertakings have to be prioritized and tackled only when it is financially prudent to do so. This certainly creates a delicate balancing act between funding levels and the needs of our area roads and infrastructure, and the answer to rising costs is not to lay the burden of those costs on lower-income Washington County residents through an increase in the gas tax.

If more money is needed for roads in Washington County, we feel there are other places to look before asking for an increase in taxes at the pump. Impact fees could be raised on all those who stand to gain enormous profits on once-worthless land that now has value due to its proximity to the Southern Parkway, for instance. Perhaps the tax breaks we give to businesses in order to lure them to Southern Utah need to be re-evaluated.

Businesses benefit greatly from the roads in Southern Utah; Southern Parkway, for example, creates far easier access to the Fort Pierce Industrial Park. If we can't afford to repair the roads companies use to get their goods to market, perhaps we're offering a bit too much to get them here and need to reduce the incentives we offer.

We feel that if tax revenue must be increased, a percentage increase on property taxes would be a better place to look than at the pump. That way, the tax increase is at least slightly more progressive and hurts lower-income people less while asking those who benefit most from the roads, like businesses and major land owners, to shoulder their fair share of the costs of the roads' upkeep.

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Funding road upkeep

The cost is usually so large when it comes to just about any road construction project that it seems like we're talking Monopoly money instead of real dollars.